Have you ever been flipping through the cable channels, not finding a thing to watch? What is that all about? Since we moved out to Portland, we have been paying over $90 a month for the extended digital cable tier (plus DVR and sports extras). We don't even know how many channels we had, but most of them were garbage. We found ourselves only watching an occasional cable program, but were mostly watching "over the air" shows.
We started to reconsider our subscription to cable. But what would we do about the few shows that we would watch on cable? Well, in comes the good ol' internet. With a little searching, we found that most of our shows are available to watch online. So, through the magic of computers, and our condo's fiber-optic internet access, we decided to drop cable.
Dropping cable is not a new idea. CNN recently did a story about people canceling cable (link). Internet TV is on the rise with sites like hulu - hulu allows people to watch current and even classic television shows (not all mind you, but a good selection). Most of the big TV networks have episodes to watch on the web, many ready to watch shortly after the original air date. The advantages to these websites are the option to watch shows when you want and not need to sit through 4 minute commercial breaks. Most sites will have an ad banner outside the window or a 30 second break every quarter of the show.
Concerns about dropping cable and just watching TV on the web could go like this: 1) The computer screen is too small. 2) I sit in front of a computer screen all day, I need a break from it. Well, why not hook a computer up to a television? In our next post, we will outline how we now watch many shows on the internet, through our TV AND for a one-time cost less than a month's worth of cable.
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